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Seeking Help for L1 Wide Season Review / Summer Transfers Preview

UbiFides

Full Back
Joined
Jun 9, 2019
Messages
3
Hi all,

Tranmere fan here in peace.

As newly minted league one members, I'm looking to put together a fan-sourced and fan-made division wide round up and was hoping I could find one or two of you willing to write something in the following format for Southend:

Club Name
Manager (or likely candidates)
Tenure (of current manager if applicable)
Ownership Situation: (appreciate this may run long for some in the division)
Main Fan Forum:

Star Player:
Underappreciated Gem:
Top Prospect:
Potential 19/20 Breakout Year:
Fan Scapegoat:
Waste of Space:
Dream Transfer Target:

Season Review: (< 200 words)
Tactical Overview: (< 200 words)
Plans & Priorities for Preseason: (< 200 words)

If people are interested I'll post the full round-up here once I've got all the teams responses.


Our Example Version below:

Tranmere Rovers

Manager: Micky Mellon
Tenure: 2 1/2 seasons
Ownership Situation: Very positive, no wealthy benefactor though.
Fan Forum: thecowsheds.co.uk

Star Player: James Norwood (CF, 28yo)
Underappreciated Gem: Connor Jennings (n10, 27yo)
Top Prospect: Harvey Gilmour (CM, 20yo)
Potential 19/20 Breakout Year: Sid Nelson (CB, 24yo) or Paul Mullin (CF, 24yo)
Fan Scapegoat: Liam Ridehalgh (LB, 28yo)
Waste of Space: Chris Dagnall (CF, 32yo)
Dream Transfer Target: Rhian Brewster on loan would be lovely

Season Review:
After a great initial start to life back in the football league Tranmere's form sagged heading into the Xmas period. January additions at center mid and on both wings in Perkins, Morris and Pringle helped bolster the team's fortunes and a 7 game winning run pushed us from Mid-table back up in to the Playoffs of League Two where we remained until the end of the season. After beating Forest Green in the semi final we had to go to the final minute of extra time for Connor Jennings to head home the goal that put us back in the third tier. James Norwood finished the season on 32 goals, in the FL Team of the Year and of course with the Golden Boot, while our reliable shot stopper Scott Davies bagged the L2 Golden Gloves for 19 (21 including play-offs) league clean sheets.
Tactical Overview:
Micky has never been afraid to change our shape in his time in charge, nor our style of play. After losing Andy Cook to Walsall (the large of our classic 442 little n large) we switched to playing more to the strength of our other 20 goal a season man, James Norwood, whose pace allows him to play off the shoulder of the final defender. For much of the season we opted for a 433 where both wingers looked to cut inside onto their stronger foot to play Nors in or shoot. This setup allowed Ollie Banks to act as a deep lying playmaker in the middle, while paired with two of our three more industrious midfield options in Luke McCollough, Jay Harris and later Dave Perkins. Manny Monthe was our rock at the back, paired with a rogues gallery of partners due to terrible luck with injuries and the decline of the once mighty Steve McNulty. When we were overwhelmed or outmatched Mellon tended to switch to 3ATB, allowing our full backs Caprice and Ridehalgh to get further up the pitch and whip balls in from wider areas.
Plans for Preseason:
The elephant in the room is that Norwood's contract is expired, and his exit for a pay rise well outside Tranmere's budgetary constraints appears inevitable. So the main thing to be keeping your ear out for is news of potential striker signings. Rumours have attached us to bringing back the now relegated and supposedly unsettled Cook from Walsall, paying out to Flyde for Danny Rowe or taking Callum Lang on loan. The club will want to wrap up new deals for CB pairing Monthe and Nelson, both 24, who showed enough to make fans confident they would handle the step up to L1. While much of the squad seems likely to stay we will also need to find some new wide-men, as Ben Pringle, Keiron Morris & Johnny Smith were only here on loan deals last season. The squad looks a little thin for the moment but if we can stave off supposed approaches for manager Mellon and key assists maker Connor Jennings, and of course find a way to replace some of Lord Norwood's goals members of the SWA will be confident we can do enough on our resources to target mid-table safety.
 
Good luck with what you are trying to do but it is a bit difficult to answer as Bond was only in charge for 6 games. Also we are late shoppers when it comes to summer signings so difficult to know what sort of player KB is targeting

Opinion is split amongst fans whether he should even have the job. Probably about 65/35 in favour. I personally think he more than deserved the job.

We did have our worst ever season for injuries, we even had players pick up new injuries when they were rushed back when things got desperate.

We come with minutes of relegation because we lost a record 13 league games at home (our away form was actually better than the previous season) What Bond did achieve was winning the last 2 home games with decent performances. Just weeks earlier we couldn't manage a shot on target against a couple fellow strugglers in classic '6 pointers'.

Forget tactics there was no time for that. what was needed was a bit of passion, effort and some belief we could win. The team responded and Bond proved to be positive with big decisions like playing out for nearly 2 years and not yet match fit Kiernan in midfield. Others would have let him see out the season at CB but we desperately needed a 'presence' at CM and Kiernan was my MOM in our last game v Sunderland

Bond was positive with subs, where as Chris Powell before him was legendary for his lack of action. Having said that with the injury crisis it left very few choices on the bench anyway.

One thing is certain as far as I'm concerned. with Bond in charge and if the injury curse lifted we will comfortably be mid table even if we don't sign anyone this summer.

I'll leave others on here to decide who are the players to watch out for etc.

Perhaps we could give a better view in 6/8 weeks time.
 
Hi Rigsby,

This is great stuff, I can adapt it to the format no problem if someone can name some guys to slot into the player gaps.

Regarding getting a better view in a couple months time I agree that's true of all the teams but in this case I'm writing a review of the 18/19 season with the addition of some speculation about how fans think their teams prospects look like in the transfer market.

I may look to put together something similar for fan's predictions for the season ahead just before the kick off in late August once most transfer business is done though! Thanks for the suggestion.

Are you alright with me crediting you with the Southend report in the round-up? Thanks again!
 
@UbiFides

Southend United
Kevin Bond
Since April
Ownership Situation: Property Developer Ron Martin. Ron took control in the late 90s as he wanted to use the land at Roots Hall to build a supermarket and promising us a new ground at Fossetts Farm. We're still waiting.

Main Fan Forum: www.shrimperzone.com

Star Player: Dru Yearwood CM 19 (although I think most would say forward Simon Cox)
Underappreciated Gem: Elvis Bwomono RB 20
Top Prospect: Isaac Hutchinson ( goalscoring midfielder 19)
Potential 19/20 Breakout Year: one of the above
Fan Scapegoat: Theo Robinson, but he's had enough and is likely to move to Swindon.
Waste of Space: Michael Kightly - more of a waste of wages than space. Our highest earner but struggles to play 90 minutes/consecutive matches. Ex Prem but is glacially slow these days.
Dream Transfer Target: the next Nicky Bailey. We signed him as an unknown from non-league in 2007 and someone with his box-to-box attributes would transform this team (and then our finances when we sell him on).

Season Review: Injuries, injuries, injuries. Most of our central midfield had a disrupted pre-season and never really got going. By September we were picking centre-mid based on who was less injured. October then saw 3 ACLs (including our top scorer) and a broken leg. We limped through November and December with basically one forward. We then signed one in the January window and he then got injured scoring his 4th goal in 7 matches. From mid-table we slipped down the league and manager Chris Powell was fired after going 11 games without a win. Kevin Bond came in for the final handful of games and a dramatic win on the final day v Sunderland was enough to keep us up.



Tactical Overview: Difficult to say as the gaffer has only been in charge a handful of matches. He liked picking a lot of defenders but hopefully that was just because we were mired in a relegation battle and trying to stop the rot.


Plans & Priorities for Preseason: Fitness! We've got a lot of players rehabilitating and won't be fit for the start of the season. For the rest the feeling was that pre-season wasn't vigorous enough (probably because we went easy because of those injuries) and we lacked stamina. The team also desperately lacks pace. We don't currently have a left-back and need to strengthen central defence and get a versatile hardworking midfielder able to play wide or in the middle at a minimum.
 
Point of order Yorkshire. When Ron Martin took over the plan to build a Sainsburys at RH and a new ground was already in place and had been for years.

Sainsburys used deliberate stalling tactics, like pulling out of one deal to buy some of the surrounding land 7 times.
They knew that rivals would not want to compete in the town and it gave them time to evaluate the ever changing shopping trends in their sector.

They did the same to Bristol Rovers who tried to sue them but they were unsuccessful.
 
So @Lost Mackem, you came on here as a Sunderland waif and stray (it happens) and now you have morphed into a full blown Southend supporter. a big welcome to Mackem Blue everybody and thank you to @UbiFides for pointing it out.:Winking:
 
So @Lost Mackem, you came on here as a Sunderland waif and stray (it happens) and now you have morphed into a full blown Southend supporter. a big welcome to Mackem Blue everybody and thank you to @UbiFides for pointing it out.:Winking:

Does this mean I'm a glory supporter?

Opening day of the season when the lads head back down to Essex and win 4-0 I'll jump ship back to the red and white.:Winking:
 
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